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distinctlywhumpthing · 8 months

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Unintentional 28

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CW: BBU-adjacent, institutionalized slavery, dehumanization. Ongoing raid, fear of recapture, clinical/hospital setting, side-effects/consequences of medwhump (cerebrovascular). Beta-read by @alittlewhump <3 Second ask is from this list

Leo told him to stay still and pretend to sleep, no matter what. One of so few direct orders, Aiden could count them on his hand. The very same Leo had just been holding, fingers warming his, giving him one last reassuring squeeze before he’d let go.

He couldn’t fail Leo.

Aiden pressed his hands into the bedspread to hide their shaking, to make them still. Starched-not-soft fabric in an orderly, woven grid under his fingertips. Hundreds of washes keeping it uniform for every new patient. Knuckles wrapped in the soft fabric of Leo’s sweatshirt. Left hand throbbing, forearms aching. Betadine and antiseptic sharp in his nose. The sounds in the hallway—the agents in the hallway. He knew those boots, those footfalls. He’d been here before.

He was there.

Beside the pool, clothes still damp from diving in, from sweating through what had to be hours of CPR. Dragged to his knees, slapped around, put in a van. The End.

He wouldn’t be able to give them his number this time, even if he wanted to. Except instead of taking a stand, he was simply too damaged. The idea of being beaten in front of Leo made his stomach twist and his throat tighten.

He couldn’t shake his head, squeeze his fist, find something, anything, to anchor him to where he was, who he was. The simplest task impossible. He used to be more than a passenger, an observer, recognizing less and less with each visit. Especially when it was like this, when he fell beneath the surface, into things that were muddy and murky and meant to stay that way.

He wanted to look, to confirm what he kept telling himself was true, but he had to keep his eyes closed.

Leo wouldn’t leave him. Leo had promised.

But the very foundation of the conditioning was doubt.

With Archer it pushed him toward an impossible perfection. Empty responsiveness that only left him aching to do more, to be better.

It nagged him constantly with Harrison but there was little to be done. Harrison took what he wanted, didn’t care what kind of vessel it came from. All of his memories returned were not enough to erase the conditioning, relieve the doubt. The ache to be deserving.

He was certain it was worse to have both: what once was housed in the ruins of what he was now.

Leo had no idea what he was taking on. Had no idea Aiden was falling to pieces in his own head when all he had to do was stay still and be quiet.

He wasn’t meant to open his eyes but Harrison was peeling them open for him. Shining his penlight into one and then the other.

“I know you’re awake.” His tone was terse. Frustrated? There was a complication? A delay? It was hard to follow, his mind slow to process. He tried to turn his head but he couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t, he was strapped down like always.

Leo had told him not to move.

Harrison snapped his fingers in front of his face. “I asked you a fucking question.”

He blinked a fraction of a second after he thought of it. He couldn’t remember hearing a question. There weren’t any quips surfacing and he wasn’t sure he had the energy to speak anyway.

He hadn’t felt this drugged before.

He wasn’t.

Leo—was Leo still there?

“For fuck’s sake.” Harrison demanded all of his attention by undoing the straps. “You’re lucky we need to do this or you’d be kissing a taste of freedom goodbye thanks to your attitude.”

Too slow to snipe back again.

He cried out when his arms fell to his sides, so heavy now that he had to hold them, fingers tingling as the blood rushed down to his fingers.

He had to stay still.

“I don't have patience for your bullshit today. Do not test me.”

He swallowed the next whimper, the reprimand curdling in his empty stomach. Unaware that Harrison had released all of the other restraints until he folded forward. Harrison caught him unceremoniously, wrapping his arms around him in a parody of an embrace that still made his heart race and his cheeks flush as if it were earned attention, a reward. Sometimes, he’d wriggle closer, moan in Harrison’s ear or whisper a few lurid suggestions. (Anything was better than being a lab rat.) Once even licked his neck but after that, Harrison had kept him unconscious for so long.

As much as he had nothing to lose, would push every button he could find in a fruitless attempt to force Harrison’s hand, his nerve was riddled with holes. Whenever Harrison was gone too long, he’d wonder if he’d ever come back. Doubt warping fearful anticipation into longing. He’d miss Harrison. Miss the attention, even of his scalpel, when there was a question of it never returning. He was nothing if not what they’d conditioned him to be.

“Alright, up you go.” Harrison’s voice still had an edge. They were in the other room across the hall but he didn’t remember getting there. Harrison pulled him to his feet, placed both of his hands on the rail bordering the room. “Let’s go, I don’t have all day.”

He gasped when Harrison let go, overwhelmed by all of his muscles working together for a purpose. But there was something else too, something beneath whatever drugs Harrison always gave him before these bouts of “exercise” to make sure he wasn’t too much trouble.

“I don’t feel right…” It came out slurred.

Harrison was busy on his phone and waved him on with his free hand. “You remember. One foot in front of the other.” He used the hard toe of his sneaker to prod against his bare heel until he moved.

Left foot forward. One step at a time.

His head hurt, ears ringing, vision wavering. Harrison would be furious if he passed out.

Right foot forward. His leg almost buckled and he gripped the bar tighter. The room spun.

“Something’s wrong.” The syllables were marbles in his mouth.

Left foot forward.

The fingers of his right hand slipped from the bar.

He couldn’t raise them again, like his whole arm had been numbed. His heart sprinted and stuttered, drilling fear deep into his chest. “Harrison, what did you give me?” The panic in his voice was clearer than the words.

“Whatever game you’re playing, I am really not—”

Right foot forward. The room tipped.

Harrison caught him and let out an exasperated sigh. “I’m fucking serious. Stand up and finish the lap.” He tried to shove him onto his feet again but he couldn’t balance.

He was crying now, tears sliding down his cheek. The ones on the other side lost in the fabric of Harrison’s lab coat. “I—I—can’t—I can’t—” No words came out at all this time, only sounds. “Harrison!” His vision spotted. Harrison lowered him to the floor, let him slump against the wall, listing sideways.

His expression was out of focus but his voice was stern. “This is your last chance. Stop—what—what are you doing?”

Harrison caught him again but he couldn’t feel where, only the other hand opening his left eye for the light. He didn’t feel his fingers on the right before his vision flared.

“Fuck.” Harrison held two fingers to his neck, checking his watch. “Look at me, talk to me.”

“I—I—I’m scared,” he cried. It was nothing, it was moans and slurs. “Harrison, help me, please!”

“No, no, no.” Harrison laid him down. “Squeeze my hand.”

His hand was empty, he couldn’t—

Harrison raised their hands into his line of sight. His right hand limp in Harrison’s grip. “Please, come on, Nothing. It’s nothing, you’re fine. You’re fine.”

He couldn’t feel his hand. “What did you do to me?” Again nothing came out. He whimpered when Harrison rolled him onto his side.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He must have been high out of his mind to hear those words.

“Talk to me, stay with me.”

How many times he’d wanted to say that himself but now he was the one leaving.

“Beau, come on. Hold my hand.” Harrison wrapped both hands around his left one. He didn’t think he’d ever done that without gloves on. It felt so warm. “Here, see? Stay with me, Beau.”

But Beau didn’t belong here.

He had died when she had, when he’d failed her.

“No, no, no.” Harrison was holding his face now. “Hey, ‘359. Come on, keep your eyes open. Trainee ‘359. That is a direct—” His voice broke. “Fuck. Please—”

‘359 was out of place too.

Fragments and pieces, hollow on the inside, incomplete before he’d been given Beau’s purpose.

A clean slate would always be empty, ‘359 couldn’t exist here.

“Please.” Harrison held him more carefully than he’d ever imagined him capable of. Like he was far from nothing, precious even. “Brandon. Forgive me.”

But he wasn’t Brandon.

Or ‘359.

Or Beau.

He only wanted to be Aiden.

And even though he could still feel Harrison’s fingers entwined with his, he was Aiden. Aiden being careful not to make a sound as memories drowned him. Aiden not moving a muscle or opening his eyes, pulse sprinting in his chest as they waited. He couldn’t feel anything under his fingertips anymore, was growing more and more desperate to check that he was in fact lying in a bed and not waking up on the ground beside Harrison or worse already back on his table. He—

The door opening brought everything in his head screeching to a halt.

It wasn’t Harrison’s warmth still lingering on his hand.

It was Leo’s.

Leo who had found him, sheltered him, been so patient and kind with him. Had risked everything by bringing him here.

He could keep still and quiet, bury his fear of what it would mean to go back, in hopes of selling this lie. To say nothing of what consequences Leo and his sister might face. He could never be the reason someone else was unmade. He owed Leo this, at the very least, as disappointing as he may have been in the rest of their short time together.

Or did he have a different kind of obligation now? Not just to please and obey but one of higher grounds. To earn everything Leo had given him so freely. To repay selflessness with a sacrifice of his own.

One of the agents cleared their throat and Aiden knew this was it. If he went easily, quietly, they might leave Leo alone. As long as he surrendered before Leo had a chance to try and improvise.

And he wouldn’t look at Leo at all. To make sure to implicate him as little as possible.

There were voices in the hallway but he couldn’t catch the words over the way his heart beat so loudly in fear, thudding through his whole body.

He promised himself he would tear the stitches in the van later.

Being manhandled into cuffs might start the job anyway.

He would—Aiden would do this to save Leo.

He sat up and opened his eyes—

In time to see the backs of the agents as the nurse ushered them out, hissing something about “immunocompromised” and “goddamn idiots, don’t they teach you to read?”

And Leo, staring at him in disbelief.

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